Learning in Games of Chance

Games of pure chance do not provide opportunities for strategic play. Figure 16.2 illustrates content to be learned in games of chance. Before they can play, players need to learn the rules—at least some of them, although there are usually few rules in games of chance. The roll of the dice, the draw of the cards, a spin of the spinner, or the computer's random selection determines the player's fate.

Games of chance have little applicability for serious learning because chance determines outcomes completely, rather than the player's performance. Learning is needed but confined to learning Rules of Play and Outcome Rules, which are particular to the game itself. There is little transferability to performance outside the game.

Learning in Memory Games

Figure 16.3 illustrates the added learning required to succeed at memory games. From a learning perspective, memory games can promote drill and practice when failed items are presented to the learner again. Memory games such as You Don't Know Jack and Jeopardy provide frameworks that can be used best for testing, but there are more efficient and effective approaches for instruction (such as the Corrective Feedback Paradigm introduced in Chapter 13) and for testing. Perhaps their greatest asset is wide familiarity with their Rules of Play.

These games can be modified for learning applications, of course. For example, challenges can require learners to perform accounting tasks or to correct grammar. There is no limitation to simple recall, such as naming the authors of famous books or the inventors of various devices as is often associated with such games. Further, the basic structure can be used to select challenges to the learner based on past performance. The tasks presented by a Jeopardy card can actually be generated or switched to make them appropriate for players/learners as they work to complete a full panel (see Figure 17.2 in the next chapter).

Memory games are generally neutral with respect to the type of content to be learned or performed. We call these games extrinsic because the game is unconcerned with the instructional content, looking only for “correct” or “incorrect” outcomes to determine what will happen next. If any instruction is provided, and it often isn't, it is an incidental adjunct to the game structure and not actually part of it. (We'll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of extrinsic games in just a moment.)

Strategic versus Nonstrategic Games

Games of chance and memory games contrast with strategic games in fundamental ways. Although nonstrategic games can provide a useful environment for drill and practice, they are insufficient and inefficient for helping learners develop skills. Tasks in these games are often selected at random without instructional logic.

Nonstrategic games don't easily incorporate learning multistep tasks or provide authentic contexts to help transfer learning to application in job performance. Further, their repetitive nature can become boring, at least partly because the game structure is (purposely) not related to the performance skills to be learned and applied. In fact, each answer given by learners is usually discrete and unrelated to previous or subsequent answers. The game fails to underscore and clarify relevance of this play to the learner. In contrast, serious learning games focus on strategic game structures. (See Table 16.1.)

Learning in Strategic Games

Figure 16.4 illustrates components of strategic games—games in which players make decisions to achieve goals and receive rewards. Note that content is brought into the game itself and consists of three major parts:

• Rules (Rules of Play and Outcome Rules)
• Player strategies (deciding what actions to take when)
• CCAF (context, challenge, activity, and feedback).

After learning at least enough rules so that players can take acceptable actions, strategic game players need to learn or develop strategies to reach the greatest reward(s). In many strategic games, players must discover or construct essential strategies through play and trial and error. Hints may be offered, but solutions may not be revealed. This requires learners to focus and think. It also builds motivation and enhances the rewards for learners who succeed by developing successful strategies.

Players may also have to achieve a certain level of performance competency to make “power” options available that, even when available, may not be presented or explained—thus rewarding experimentation and further learning.

Level-Ups

As shown in Figure 16.5, a very popular and effective strategic game structure involves level-ups. Multiple levels segment content to avoid overwhelming beginning players/learners. This is akin to advancing learners from working on sets of enabling objectives stepwise up to full performance goals. Players need learn only a minimal set of rules to get started. Games that require learning an extensive set of rules at first are much less appealing, of course, whether instructional or not.

The initial rules to learn are the Rules of Play, which enable the quickest commencement of play. Playing yields the opportunity to learn Outcome Rules, typically by witnessing the consequences of actions.

Once some Rules of Play and Outcome Rules are internalized, players can begin to develop and apply strategies. This approach to instruction and learning is classic constructivism (Jonassen, 1999), in which learners actively discover and then come to appreciate the utility of discovered concepts. Learners apply strategic methods to determine relationships, rather than having them dished out to them in bullet points.

Keeping the Fun: Keep Quiet and Reward Strategic Play

In many games, fun comes from discovering the Outcome Rules and the power of various strategies. To take advantage of the motivational energy of fun, we need to resist the common temptation of instructional designers to teach rule-based outcomes and strategies explicitly. Keeping in mind that we learn important lessons from making mistakes, we need to let learners make mistakes and witness the consequences of those actions. Trying to head off mistakes by explaining and demonstrating everything in detail prior to letting learners see what they can do, not only reduces the scope of what learners might learn but also reduces the motivational characteristics that games offer. And, it takes the fun right out of the game.

Both Outcome Rules and strategies are exactly the content to be learned when developing skills. Well-designed instructional games minimize the time and effort needed to learn the interface, so play can begin as soon as possible. With an intuitive interface, player/learners can focus primarily on the rules and strategies needed not only to succeed in game play, but also on the real world tasks they apply to. When the context is similar to the context in which learners will actually perform, transfer of learning to performance is increased, the learning experience is said to be authentic, and learners will consider their time to have been well spent.

Let's look at the Sunny Side Grill, this time from the SLG perspective.

This example game is fun and challenging to play. Its success as an SLG derives from making nearly all the Rules of Play and Outcome Rules the very same content learners need to learn to be successful in their jobs. In other words, the Content Rules, Outcome Rules, and Strategies overlap almost fully.

As a short-order chef, most food preparation is relatively simple, consisting mainly of placing items on the grill or in a skillet and transferring properly cooked items to a plate. But timing and sequencing become very challenging when simultaneous orders come in for foods that vary significantly in cook time (see Figure 16.7).

This game is primarily about determining when to start cooking each food item so all items on an order ticket finish cooking at almost exactly the same time. Players/learners drag raw foods onto the grill or skillet in any order and at any time they wish.

What's critical is that cooked items are cooked for the correct amount of time, not too little or too much, and served while all items are still hot. When there are multiple items to be served in the same order, it's important not to let some cooked items get cold (they turn blue if they do) while waiting for other items to finish cooking.

Challenge Levels

As the player demonstrates ability to prepare orders and serve plates of the correct foods, properly cooked and at appropriate temperatures, the game advances to the next level where challenges increase. Some of the ways challenges increase are:

• The variety of foods requested increases.
• The variance in cook times increases.
• The number of items per plate orders increases.
• The number of plates to serve at the same time increases.

Challenges at higher levels are both more difficult and more typical of actual situations employees will face. See Figure 16.8 for examples.

Learning Aids

A continuous running clock is available as an aid, and relative cook times are available for reference (see Figure 16.9).

Items on the grill continue cooking and customers continue to wait while learners are looking up cook times. As a further incentive to learn relative cook times so it won't be necessary to look them up repeatedly, player/learners find a mess in the kitchen to clean up when returning to the game after each reference to aids. Let's look at the underlying rules.

Rules of Sunny Side Grill

Level 1 Rules of Play: What must, can, and cannot be done

1. Player must select correct raw foods to cook matching presented order(s).
2. Player can drag any food items to the grill, fry skillet, or plate.
3. Player can drag cooking (including overcooked) items away to discard.
4. Player cannot stop the clock or adjust grill temperature.
5. Player cannot stop cooking foods once items have been place on the grill or skillet.
6. Player cannot put cooked foods under a warming lamp or otherwise delay cooling once items have been plated.

Level 1 Outcome Rules: The game's response to player actions

Note: Plate orders appear one at a time in Level 1.

1. If player fails to fulfill two one-item-per-plate orders with foods properly cooked and served at correct temperature on the first try, then player is given a second try.
2. If player fails to fulfill two one-item-per-plate orders with foods properly cooked and served at correct temperature on a second try, then player is sent back to the introduction.
3. If beaten eggs are placed on the grill, they will be rejected.
4. If beaten eggs are poured into the skillet, they will be cooked.
5. If player fulfills two one-item-per-plate orders with foods properly cooked and served at correct temperature, then player advances to Level 2.
6. If foods are not cooked long enough (times are specific to each type of food and revealed in the accessible reference chart), then they cannot be served and will be rejected.
7. If foods are left cooking too long after they appear fully cooked, then they burn and cannot be served.
8. If all foods ordered for a plate have been placed on the plate, then service is requested immediately.

Level 1 Strategies (which are also targeted learning outcomes)

1. If foods have not finished cooking, then don't plate them.
2. If foods have finished cooking, then get them plated quickly.
3. If fresh fruit is ordered, then put it on the plate at any convenient time (and never on the grill).
4. If scrambled eggs are ordered, then put them in the skillet.

Although we've only looked at Level 1 of this game in detail so far, note that game rules are the content we'd want learners to learn. Simply presenting this information to learners would not have nearly the same impact or meet the criteria of meaningful, memorable, and motivational learning. In fact, the information is very likely to be forgotten before the new chef got to the kitchen. Playing this game (which you can do at http://bit.ly/1KJiQWw) makes the value of this experience quite clear. I had to return to Level 4 and practice many times before I successfully completed Level 5, but I had no thought of giving up until I'd met the challenge. You'll probably have the same experience and definitely would if you were actually an aspiring short-order cook.

Level-Ups

As the game advances through its multiple levels, the challenges become considerably more difficult. Not unlike the classic Lucille Ball skit in which she and best friend Ethel have to individually wrap chocolates and keep up with a speeding conveyor belt in the factory, game players will have more food on the grill finishing up faster and faster. It becomes difficult to serve all food properly cooked and at the right temperature, until you can instantly recall relative cooking times. It took me many tries to meet the final challenge, but the game kept me practicing through all the repetitions necessary for me to have fully mastered the relative cooking times and also to have developed the ability to keep multiple orders in my head while working through them. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to just gobble up my mistakes, like Lucy and Ethel did.

By the way, the player/learner is exposed to additional rules and needs to develop new and more complex strategies to succeed at the game. Subsequent levels require various combinations of foods on each plate, with multiple plates needing to be ready to be served at the same time. Chefs have to scan all plate orders going to the same table and manage increasing numbers of items cooking at the same time. Some of the more advanced game strategies and content to be learned include the following:

Advanced Level Strategies (which are also targeted learning outcomes)

General Strategies

1. If multiple items must finish cooking at the same time, then
   1. slower-cooking items must start cooking before faster-cooking items.
   2. faster-cooking items must start cooking before slower-cooking items have finished.

Example Instance-Specific Strategies (of which there are many)

1. 2. If bacon and scrambled eggs or pancakes are ordered, then start eggs and pancakes when bacon is about one-fourth cooked.
2. 3. If toast or fried eggs are ordered with other items, start them at the same time and
   1. when bacon is three-fourths done or
   2. before scrambled eggs/pancakes/hash browns are one-half done or
   3. when sausages or ham are one-half done.